An Ode to Dentists
by breadsticks
Summary: Because being a dentist sucks. It sucks even more being a dentist for the supernatural. Because even the supernatural need to take care of their teeth. R27. AU.


Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: Dedicated to all the people who ever dreaded going to the dentist and to all the hard-working dentists in the business. I know how hard you guys work, especially when your patients are never happy to see you. :)

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It was a small office with blue white-washed walls and a clear glass window that showed a friendly receptionist talking on the phone. The room inside proudly displayed several potted plants and three comfortable looking armchairs with a curling little magazine stand in the middle. There was even a TV at the corner, showing old reruns of black and white cartoons.

And there was a steady stream of screaming, wailing, pleading, and whimpers rending the peaceful air.

In bright cheerful blue letters above the window office ominously spelled:

DENTIST

Inside the office, past the smiling woman behind the desk, and into the long corridor featuring three doors on each side, the floors and walls were the same _nice _blue walls with the added feature of paintings and pictures of children happily talking with a woman or man in scrubs and a facemask. The tiles on the floor were squeaky, bleachy clean and there was a faint smell of chemicals and drilled teeth in the air.

Inside one of these secret, private rooms, there were more of the posters of cartoonish kids laughing and smiling and nodding along to the person holding various metallic tools hovering next to them. In between were cupboards and drawers and shelves filled with a strange array of medicinal boxes and cotton balls and advertisement flyers of new experimental sedatives. And right smack in the middle of the small room was a chair, decidedly uncomfortably stretched out like a surgical bed. And above this was an eerie metallic arm that swiveled any which way, ending in an eye-like lamp-light. Next to it was a small skulking stand, full of the tools of the trade, which included: the slim sadistic drill outfitted with several varieties of screws at the end, the bewildering collection of hooks and picks that stood patiently in a line, the blood-curdling two-inch needle on top of the injection shot, and the unnamable tweezers that dentists have (but people are never sure of the name, embarrassed at calling it _tweezers_).

In the midst of this terrifying situation, sat the werewolf, Gokudera, age nineteen.

Who was having a wisdom tooth extracted.

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Werewolves had dogteeth, a.k.a. fangs. They were long pointed teeth and each werewolf commonly had four, two at the bottom jaw and two on the upper one. Separated by several incisors, they rested slightly on the gums, past the edge of the arc of teeth. They were often larger and stronger than the rest of the teeth.

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What Gokudera's problem was that one of his few molars at the back of his teeth was growing in sideways and needed to be taken out for his teeth to grow straight.

Luckily it was a wisdom tooth.

Unluckily it was a werewolf's wisdom tooth.

Because wisdom teeth were considered temporary and the body, mortal or immortal, tended to replace them with adult teeth later on in life. But werewolves tended to heal fast which made it difficult to pull out the teeth. They also tended to have supernatural strength and sensitivity in all six senses (including their gums in the mouth). And another growing issue was that werewolves were impervious to most known chemicals/sedatives. It was one of the advantages of being supernatural (or in this case, one of the disadvantages.)

Gray furred triangular ears twitched nervously on top of Gokudera's head. This was a new dentist he was seeing since his last one just got sick by a vampire bite infection. Apparently it was one of her irritated patients. Gokudera suspected that patient would soon find himself sued/get charged with physical assault. It was the modern age, after all.

He'd heard this dentist was going to be seeing was real good. Very light with his hands, Yamamoto had told him.

Still, light hands or no, Gokudera was tensing up, to shore up his resistance against girlish crying at the hands of his dentist.

Damn Bianchi-neesan and her enamel-dissolving cookies.

He'd also come prepared. His nose was clean. His mouth was recently frantically cleaned with floss and toothbrush. And his pores weren't all that huge. And he didn't stink either.

It was always unnerving to have a dentist crouching over you. For one thing, they could see up your nostrils.

And you couldn't even see theirs since their facemasks blocked your view.

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"Hello. So, how are you today, Gokudera?" The young brunet in green scrubs asked quietly while holding a clipboard. He sat down on a wheelie chair next to the grim-looking werewolf lying stiffly on the designated patient's chair. He pulled on a white soft-looking facemask then clipped the squarish (oh the humiliation) bib around Gokudera's neck. "I'm Dr. Sawada Tsunayoshi and let's see…" He checked the file before him. "A tooth extraction, huh?" Then Tsuna looked at the patient information and paled a bit. A werewolf.

This would be his first werewolf patient.

He checked his equipment. No silver. That was good.

Sedatives would be a problem. But didn't the WW Inc. recently ship him a box of wolfsbane? Granted it lasted only twenty minutes in a young adult wolf. He would have to time it so that nearing the twenty-minute mark, he would have already injected another shot so Gokudera wouldn't feel anything. He would have to be sure not to overdose.

He smiled a bit apologetically to the werewolf who immediately looked suspicious. "I-I'm really sorry about this Gokudera, but…" He pressed a red button on the back of the patient chair known only to the same medical circle as dentists. It was called, For Troublesome Patients.

Specially designed leather straps whirred into view and locked Gokudera's four limbs, his thighs, his midsection, then across his shoulders. But the resilient werewolf kept still as he was used to this from his own parent's brand of wolfcub discipline.

Then Dr. Tsuna lifted the two inch injection shot. Even in the face of that monstrosity, Gokudera did not flinch. He was a proud member of the werewolf clan, Gokudera, and he would and could laugh in the face of Danger (with a capital letter).

Then Dr. Tsuna popped off the needle and exchanged it with a _three _inch gleaming needle. It was practically the size of an adult FINGER. The liquid in the injection shot gurgled yellow in appreciation. Had to get through the thick skin and the corded muscles of werewolves, don'tcha know?

Gokudera's face went slack as he blacked out.

Tsuna nodded gracefully then clamped into his patient's mouth, a wide rubber…pacifier thing. It forced open Gokudera's mouth, even if he was unconscious. He injected the shot, glad his patient wouldn't feel anything now.

Gokudera drooled a bit on Tsuna's fingers.

But they all did anyway (his patients).

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It was a bit difficult being a human dentist to all these supernatural races. The fact that each of his patients could rip out his throat with their bare hands was an everyday worry of Tsuna's (although, truth to tell, the Defamation League had long since banned any human ripping/killing/drinking/eating for the other races; it was simply bad manners to eat each other nowadays [not to mention, old-fashioned]).

Though, let's recap. What is _scarier_? A drooling monster screaming for your blood/neck/flesh/brains or a dentist holding a drill, looking oddly focused?

After all, there's nothing sadder than seeing a grown man/being shrieking like a little girl underneath a dentist who seems more like an irritated mother figure who's just found out your hygiene habits. (Worse, it was a professional irritated mother figure who could, with pin-point accuracy, judge the level of damage you've done to your teeth.)

[Damn your sweet tooth.]

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Gokudera blinked awake. Next to him, Tsuna was busily writing something down, a prescription for antibiotics. Feeling like his entire mouth was stuffed with cotton balls, he mumbled, "—'f done?"

Dr. Tsuna turned around and smiled warmly. "Yep." He suddenly found himself in a bear-hug from an ecstatic werewolf.

From that moment on, Gokudera called Tsuna, sensei.

(Not to mention showed up every day at the office even_ without_ an appointment.)

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Aside from working on a vampire that stared hungrily at his neck while he drilled into the vampire's sweet tooth and a sharkman who looked apologetic while his rows and rows of serrated teeth revolved around his mouth, Tsuna was done for the day. It was a particularly slow day.

They say what you eat says a lot about what you are as a person. In science, the shape and form of your teeth conform to their specific function, meaning that what your teeth looks like tells a dentist what you eat exactly. And following that logic, your teeth also tell the dentist what you are as a person.

That was why teeth disposal was very dangerous.

Aside from the fact that planting teeth in the ground could spring up seven deadly armed (albeit confused-looking) warriors, teeth were also often used in voodoo and in DNA extraction identification. As said above, someone holding your tooth immediately had the blueprints to your genes and could effectively manipulate you from a distance.

That was why at the end of every week, Dr. Tsuna had to face Mr. Reborn, part of the Tooth Fairy Disposal Agency. And Mr. Reborn was a very INTIMIDATING man (Tsuna secretly suspected him of also belonging to the Tooth Mafia.)

Mr. Reborn was six foot and three inches (while Tsuna was merely a five foot and two...). He always wore a respectable black suit with a bright orange tie and a fedora that featured little gecko patterns on the band running around the hat. His hair spiked underneath rebelliously under the hat and curly sideburns framed a high-cheekbone'd face. And his EYES. They were completely black, inside and out, as if he had no iris. Like two chips of a fractured black hole, or something like that.

Tsuna was honestly _very _scared.

Mr. Reborn also claimed that he was a normal human. His mouth told otherwise. When Mr. Reborn opened his mouth, Tsuna always caught flashes of black smooth teeth. As in completely inky black teeth. It wasn't rot. In fact, Mr. Reborn's teeth were perfectly shaped and symmetrical without any cavities, loath as Dr. Tsuna was to admit it. It was most likely that Mr. Reborn chewed betel nut, a tooth preservative that just stained teeth black. But the strange part of it was that practice had _long_ gone out of…practice, since betel nut was _extremely _illegal (being usually used [its leaves, anyway] as a date rape drug). And then there was the fact that each tooth was sharpened to small carnivorous points.

It was a wonder he hadn't sliced himself yet with that mouthful of miniature shards.

Dr. Tsuna certainly didn't approve.

Although, he kept it to himself.

But when Mr. Reborn came in that night, featuring small silver pointed studs on his teeth in a strange exotic tribal design—Dr. Tsuna finally squeaked in alarm. That was a mafia design that was. As in a mafia membership tattoo. On the teeth.

Mr. Reborn grinned toothily at him, the studs gleaming against the black backdrop. That had been a _very_ cute sound. Now, Reborn looked positively demonic.

Dr. Tsuna stepped back in alarm. They were alone. And his cellphone was in his office at the back.

Mr. Reborn took a step forwards. Then gave chase.

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Afterwards, Mr. Reborn slowly ran his pianist' fingers through Tsuna's hair. He was reclining on one of the patient chairs with Tsuna asleep on him, his brown head tucked _just _right underneath Reborn's chin. He smirked like a cat that got the cream.

Tsuna twitched and whimpered.

Reborn shushed into brown hair.

It was a good thing Mr. Reborn had all this muscle mass to keep them both warm. And one of these days, Mr. Reborn would acquire one of Tsunayoshi's baby teeth (he knew the dentist kept them somewhere; he could _practically_ smell the milky scent). It was just a matter of time. After all, teeth were also a very good way of keeping track of your lover.

The end.

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What do Mr. Reborn's teeth tell about himself?

Tsuna: …That he's _very _scary. And domineering. Like a despotic tyrant. (*whispers*-_help mee—_)


End file.
